City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

What is the best budget toon for Farming?

Adeon Hawkwood

By Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2010-01-19 13:01 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion

 

Posted

I was thinking if someone is just starting out with no influence to IO out his toons and make them shiney what would be the best way to earn the influence or find the resources for those IO's?

Is the answer to farm? Is there something else I should do?

If I'm going to farm, what toon should I build and where should I farm?

 

Posted

You're gonna get all kinds of answers here. I'll go ahead and give you an idea of what i did.

I made a Fire/Kin controller. Sux out of the box but after 32 it gets better. After 38 it gets real easy. It's a fairly cheap build to get started because it has a damage boost and an endurance refiller.

Once you get him to 50, inf will start pouring in if you decide to farm. Personally, i farm in PI for the purple drops. (do some radios and open up maria jenkins or harvey maylor as a contact, they give good farm maps so does Unai) I also farm a mish in AE for recipe rolls.

If you don't like to farm, you can always make inf by using WW. It's not hard and you don't need a guide. Just browse expensive crafted recipes and then look to see the selling price for the uncrafted version of the recipe. You can make inf by that way if you don't like farming.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by eryq2 View Post
You're gonna get all kinds of answers here. I'll go ahead and give you an idea of what i did.
Thanks. I figured, I would get a lot of different ideas and thoughts. The more ideas I get the more I'll have to pick from. Hopefully, I'll find one that is a good fit for my playstyle.

 

Posted

I'm not sure of your playstyle, but here's my opinions.

Troller- Fire/kin, Plant/Kin and i even seen a nice farming Plant/ Storm. (shocked me. lol)

Tank- Fire/Fire seems to run the demon farm nice. (my cousin has one)

Blaster- I've seen and i have an Arch/MM. Does ok after the alpha strike. (bm farm here)

Scrapper- Again Fire/Fire I've seen a couple nice ones on the demon farm.
Elec/SD i have one of these. Does great on the BM, Freak and Council farm.
Spines/FA or Spines/DA(i cant get this one to work tho. good luck) Works good on demons, not sure what else.

Some builds will cost more depending on what you choose to farm, and if you need high defenses against certain mobs. I'm melee capped on my def and BM seems to be very easy. IMO, i'd go Fire or Plant/Kin to get started. But again, that's me.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Talionis View Post
I was thinking if someone is just starting out with no influence to IO out his toons and make them shiney what would be the best way to earn the influence or find the resources for those IO's?

Is the answer to farm? Is there something else I should do?

If I'm going to farm, what toon should I build and where should I farm?
I've tried answering this a few times - it might be overedited as a result.

You can "IO out" your toons very inexpensively, or very very expensively, depending on what your goals and standards are.

A frankenslotted character can be roughly the same cost as an SO'd out character (under 20 million, say) and perform 30-50% better. A 500 million inf character can be 10-30% better than frankenslotted and an infinitely expensive character can be 20-30% better than that.

There is also nothing wrong with making money just as a way of keeping score. I make way more than I spend on my characters so I do weird things with my money from time to time.

Assuming for now that you want to make, say, a billion inf, you can do it several ways. I mostly use the Market, and it absolutely doesn't matter what character you use. My biggest earnings, multiple billions, were done on a level 20 character. It's multiplicative: you make a million, use that to make five million, use that to make twenty million, use that to make fifty million, use that to make a couple hundred million, use that to make half a billion or a billion. The first million USED to be hard, but you can do that in an hour these days.

You can run, on the way to level 50, every Task Force the game has and when you get to 50, roll random recipes until you have no room, craft and sell the ones that are worth it, and roll some more. You'll get something like 30,40 rolls and that's likely to get you close to a billion. You can keep running Imperious Task Forces and Lady Grey TF's and Statesman's and stack the money up that way.

You can get to 50, build a custom farming character and rampage through map after map of freaks, council, whatever works best for you. Some people find it relaxing. Not my thing, so other people's advice is going to be better than mine.

Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.

So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.

 

Posted

If you have absolutely nothing and want a capable farmer (but not the best), make a Shield/SS tank. Low level will be a drag if you solo, but I got mine to 32 in about 2 weeks, just by running the Task Force Commander TFs. By this point you should be well slotted all around. At 38 you'll get Foot Stomp. With this, Rage, Against All Odds, and Shield Charge, you'll be able to put out very good damage. Add Combat Jumping, Tough and Weave, and some fairly cheap IOs, and you'll be softcapped to all positions with about 45% Smashing/Lethal Resist. By planning out my build in advance, and putting bids up on what I needed starting at level 1, and crafting and storing the IOs, I had the entire built for under 50 million - the expensive IO's (Numina, Miracle and Steadfast Protection uniques) were picked up with merits and tickets.

With this build, I wander untouched through Council, Freak and Battle Maiden maps, stopping in the middle of +2x8 groups for several minutes at a time, chatting with friends, and come back to the fight still at full health. It's not the best build ever - far from it - but it will get you started, and allow you to farm enough rares and purples to get new characters started, and even flesh out a more efficient farming build on this or another toon.

I'll post the build when I get home, if I still have it saved. The great thing about it is that it's mostly common and uncommon IOs. If I remember correctly, it has only 10 rares, and no purples!

@Roderick

 

Posted

OK, this is the build I'm using. It has a few sub-optimal power choices, because I built if to match a character concept as well.

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.601
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Shield Bug: Level 50 Natural Tanker
Primary Power Set: Shield Defense
Secondary Power Set: Super Strength
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Leadership
Ancillary Pool: Energy Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Deflection -- EndRdx-I(A), EndRdx-I(3), ResDam-I(3), ResDam-I(5), DefBuff-I(5), DefBuff-I(7)
Level 1: Jab -- C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg(A), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx(15), C'ngImp-Dmg/Rchg(17), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(17), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(19), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(19)
Level 2: Battle Agility -- EndRdx-I(A), EndRdx-I(7), DefBuff-I(9), DefBuff-I(9)
Level 4: Haymaker -- C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg(A), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx(15), C'ngImp-Dmg/Rchg(21), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(23), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(23), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(25)
Level 6: Active Defense -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(13)
Level 8: True Grit -- ResDam-I(A), S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(11), Heal-I(11), Heal-I(13)
Level 10: Air Superiority -- C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg(A), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx(27), C'ngImp-Dmg/Rchg(29), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(31), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(31), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(31)
Level 12: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 14: Health -- Numna-Heal(A), Numna-EndRdx/Rchg(43), Mrcl-Rcvry+(43), RgnTis-Regen+(43)
Level 16: Fly -- Zephyr-Travel(A), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(46)
Level 18: Phalanx Fighting -- DefBuff-I(A)
Level 20: Stamina -- EndMod-I(A), EndMod-I(21), P'Shift-End%(27)
Level 22: Knockout Blow -- C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg(A), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx(33), C'ngImp-Dmg/Rchg(33), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(33), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(34), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(34)
Level 24: Against All Odds -- EndRdx-I(A), EndRdx-I(25)
Level 26: Shield Charge -- M'Strk-Acc/Dmg(A), M'Strk-Dmg/EndRdx(34), M'Strk-Dmg/Rchg(37), M'Strk-Acc/EndRdx(37), M'Strk-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(37), M'Strk-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(39)
Level 28: Rage -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(29)
Level 30: Boxing -- Empty(A)
Level 32: Tough -- EndRdx-I(A), EndRdx-I(50), ResDam-I(50), ResDam-I(50)
Level 35: Weave -- EndRdx-I(A), EndRdx-I(36), DefBuff-I(36), DefBuff-I(36)
Level 38: Foot Stomp -- M'Strk-Acc/Dmg(A), M'Strk-Dmg/EndRdx(39), M'Strk-Dmg/Rchg(39), M'Strk-Acc/EndRdx(40), M'Strk-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(40), M'Strk-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(40)
Level 41: Focused Accuracy -- GSFC-ToHit(A), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg(42), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(42), GSFC-Rchg/EndRdx(42), GSFC-ToHit/EndRdx(46), GSFC-Build%(46)
Level 44: Physical Perfection -- Heal-I(A), Heal-I(45), EndMod-I(45), EndMod-I(45)
Level 47: Maneuvers -- EndRdx-I(A), EndRdx-I(48), DefBuff-I(48), DefBuff-I(48)
Level 49: One with the Shield -- Heal-I(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Gauntlet

If I were to try to optimize it, I'd go more like this:

| Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build |
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|4FC2FE24ECDFA34A23E654DAD6084E6314B84F3363926FAC8 9352F0DA65B4000840|
|6B3670657C9C5B8E41BC7FEE700CBE677C63BE5DBF4A8088D 4CC83E4DA0E8AAA0DC|
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|0DFDA9CAC9AFB68B672FE13F019F882A3F90A7C33F84EBBB3 28176771931A2555DE|
|02F035957138CB389CE5A2A9B545AB5C397117AFB00C6CD3C C8AECCE0A32E4A217B|
|78C7EBC61DBFF8CEC46E5FAD2886546E6A31737FABF9E1F4E 274FDF1E5FF703965D|
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|-------------------------------------------------------------------|

Remember, this is a cheap, solid build, not the best. It WILL do good in most situations, however. In both cases, It's assumed that you have all four Auto-Power Accolades. It's worth having Geas of the Kind Ones and Eye of the Magus, but I don't really see you using either often. In fact, I'm considering respeccing out of One With The Shield, since I use it so rarely. Elusive Mind is worth picking up though, since your Psi protection amounts to 13% def and 10% resist - not a heck of a lot. I've also assumed that you have a few vet rewards (Sands of Mu is handy, because it's unaffected by +dam OR -dam, so you can finish off a weak enemy during a Rage crash), and the Martial Arts booster in the latter build (Ninja Run for a travel power, combined with a few +Run set bonuses gets you a good speed).

@Roderick

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Silas View Post
I would say in terms of best performance for the least money (SOs/frankenslotting) the best farmers are fire/kin trollers heroside and ss/wp brutes villainside.

For making influence, Fulmens is right on the money (har).
Pretty much agree with the above. Fire/Kins and SS/WP can farm with just SOs. +1/x8/no bosses is easily within the capabilities of either of those builds.

Farming IMO is not that efficient in gaining influence. Barring purple drops, the best farming builds top out in the neighborhood of 35-40M/hour in terms of influence kills, and that's assuming you are going full bore at it without stopping. Or...you can craft a few IOs and make that offline as you sleep or while you actually play the game.

I both farm and play the market but in terms of making influence marketing is far more efficient, and doesn't require any farming capable character.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fury Flechette View Post
I both farm and play the market but in terms of making influence marketing is far more efficient, and doesn't require any farming capable character.
Agreed, marketeers are overpowered.

 

Posted

I'm not a huge one for playing the market but I was able to make 100 million on my level 20 Blaster just by 'vendoring' unwanted recipies from the market. Probably not the most efficient method of doing it but it worked so if you're starting with nothing, it's a relatively easy way to get going.

@Dante EU - Union Roleplayer and Altisis Victim
The Militia: Union RP Supergroup - www.themilitia.org.uk

 

Posted

Well, if you're just talking about selling drops via market, then the market and farming go hand in hand. Without the farmers, the market would be pretty empty because drop rates are pretty low, imo. If i run a regular mission, i never get 15-20 recipe drops like i do per farm run in PI. Flippers can't flip whats not in the market to begin with. And if people crafted their own stuff, the prices would be alot lower.

I get 9000 tickets per hour in AE. ( mind you i run 3 accounts so everyone can't do that)That's a ton of recipe rolls. I very seriously think i can keep up with any flipper and a toon left in WW to flip or craft. 9 mil vs. 1mil i can't see. You can't just think about the inf in farming, you gotta consider all the drops as well.

But again, it's whatever you like to do OP. Inf can be made either way. If you like playing your toon or leaving them at WW, its up to you.